The Extremes of Struggle at the Monster’s Heart: The Black Working Class and...
“International capitalism cannot be destroyed without the extremes of struggle. The entire colonial world is watching the blacks inside the U.S…We are on the inside. We are the only ones who can get at...
View ArticleGEO Rally for Fair Contract
On Wednesday, Oct. 4, the Graduate Employees’ Organization held a rally for a fair contract. The union had been without a contract for 50 days.
View ArticleAbused: Working Women Face Widespread Harassment and Violence
By Pat Simpson Pat Simpson, Emerita Professor, Loyola University, formerly taught in the Labor Education Program, UIUC. A longtime labor and social justice activist, she is currently a member of the...
View ArticleHistory Matters: Remembering Two “Dangerous” Labor Union Women
By Stephanie Fortado Dr. Stephanie Seawell Fortado is a Lecturer at the University of Illinois Labor Education Program, providing workshops and extension programming for unions and the general public...
View ArticleJanus v. AFSCME Council 31
By Dan Gilbert Dan Gilbert teaches in the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois. In a matter of weeks the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in Janus v. American...
View ArticleA Bad Year Turned Good? Lessons of Setbacks and Victories
Labor Day has come and gone. It is always a great day for celebrating the history and contributions of American workers and the achievements of the country’s labor unions. In the wake of the holiday,...
View ArticleFighting for the Soul of Public Education
The administration of the University of California, Santa Cruz announced on Friday, February 28 that it would fire fifty-four graduate instructors who are on strike at the University. The announcement...
View ArticleThe Pandemic and Pro Wrestling
In the November, 2019 Public i, I wrote about one of the earliest gig economies: professional wrestling. There, independent pro wrestler David Starr discussed the incredibly imbalanced power dynamics...
View ArticleSEIU Statement Regarding the Changes in the Building Services Department at UIUC
The University decided in mid-spring that it would reopen for the 2020 fall semester, a decision that would require drastic, “emergency” changes in our department and to the working conditions of SEIU...
View ArticleDisruptive Shift Changes for UIUC Custodial Staff
Jenni Walkup is a public anthropology MA student at American University who lives in Champaign. She works in education and writes about movements and social change. She’s very good at Bananagrams. In...
View ArticleGovernor Pritzker has the Power to Halt All Utility Shutoffs by Signing an...
Robin Brown’s utilities in Champaign were shut off by Ameren Illinois on September 18, 2020, in the midst of our historical COVID-19 pandemic. When asked about how utility shutoffs affected her, Brown...
View ArticleThe University and its Workers during the Pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic has affected universities all over the country and the world. Different institutions have chosen different approaches, from keeping all courses online and discouraging students...
View ArticleWhat Can we Learn from The Amazon Union Vote in Bessemer, Alabama?
During the past year, as the pandemic reshaped our daily lives, the media has paid more attention to work and workers than it has in a long time. The pandemic has shone a spotlight on the deep...
View ArticleAnarchism and the American Labor Movement
Anarchists, proponents of “anti-authoritarian socialism,” seek to abolish the state and capitalism. Anarchism replaces authoritarian governance and private ownership of resources with federations of...
View ArticleIt’s Not a Labor Shortage, It’s a Workers’ Rights Shortage
The Great Uprising, the Great Resignation, even the unofficial General Strike: analysts and pundits—left, right and center—speak of mounting worker unrest in the US in awestruck terms. What these...
View ArticleI Love My Job, But . . .
The University of Illinois is part of the US land-grant university system. Each state has a land-grant university that operates a Cooperative Extension Service, which provides non-formal education to...
View ArticleThe Value of Transaction Taxes on Financial Instruments
Financial transaction taxes (FTT) are an innovative system whose time has come again. There has been a narrow FTT in the UK since 1694, which raised $4.9 billion in 2020, and it hasn’t prevented the...
View ArticleA Time of Monsters: The New Nadir and the Crisis of the Black Worker
We currently reside in what Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci called “A Time of Monsters.” Exacerbated by the catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic, the Black working classes continue to struggle under what...
View ArticleLabor Abuse as Product Placement at the World Cup
The 2022 soccer World Cup began its takeover of global sports channels on November 20, transmitting endless images of cosmopolitan crowds enjoying the sparkling new stadiums of Qatar to audiences...
View ArticleGEO at UIUC 10 Months into Contract Negotiations
As I write this, the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) Local 6300 is 10 months into the contract negotiating process with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign administration. So far there...
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